Good things

Moving abroad is not always easy. Nothing is as simple or makes as much sense as at home. Banal tasks like buying bedding (are there seriously no fitted sheets in this country?) and getting home (45 minute bus detour yesterday) are oftentimes frustrating, reminding you that sure, maybe you’re getting the hang of life here, but no, you’re not there yet.

But at the risk of sounding negative about our new home, I wanted to talk about just a few of the things that I love about Dubai:

1. The food.
I love the food here. I have yet to have a bad meal, and that includes my foray into the food court at the mall by our house. Last night I got Lebanese takeout, which costs less than cooking dinner at home and saves me an inevitable mess and the risk of a complete culinary disaster. That and I have to satisfy my two servings of hummus per day quota (the hummus here is ridiculous.)

Happy at a street side Lebanese restaurant

2. Happy hour.
Liquor here is expensive because it carries a 30 percent tax. Which is why we (and every other expat) love the prevalence of happy hour in Dubai. Here’s the view from our favorite one so far on the 52nd floor of the Marriott.

A glass of wine with a price tag that doesn’t compromise our future child’s college fund and looking at this view, I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be. Bonus points go to this particular bar for not being a pub of the English, Irish, or Australian variety.

3. This couch:
An arm rest/cup holder built right into the couch? Why haven’t we come up with such genius?

4. The rules:
Sure, sometimes it’s annoying that I can’t have a sip of my Diet Coke in the metro or that I was publicly humiliated over the loud speaker when my foot touched the seat in the bus. But it’s the rules that keep this country so ridiculously pristine. Public displays of affection are not only frowned upon here, but also illegal if taken to a certain extent. In a shocking turn of events, I found myself on the metro today scowling at a young couple kissing. I’ve officially become that woman scoffing at young people in love on the metro! OK, maybe I’m acclimating just fine.

Christmas in the Desert

Rob worked on Christmas Eve and I spent a very stressful day at the pool (a new Dubai Christmas tradition!) Feeling tanned and festive, I set about cooking Christmas Eve dinner.

Despite winter temperatures that seldom drop below 65 degrees in Southern California, my grandmother always makes a hearty goulash soup on Christmas Eve. I decided this would also be a good choice in a city where temperatures are equally as un-Christmasy.

After cleaning up the piles of paprika that exploded in a cloud onto our stove and floor when I opened the bag, then evacuating when the fire alarm went off (not caused by me as far as I know) the soup was finally finished. I have new respect for my Oma’s soup that she makes so effortlessly. The meat was so tough it could have been loaded into a bb gun and used to shoot a bird for our next dinner.

I also decided that we needed homemade Christmas cookies. Here's a snapshot of the process:

You’ll notice several things wrong with this picture:
1: No mixing bowl; sub cheap pot
2: No electric mixer; sub wooden spoon and very tired right arm
3: Flour all over the counter, floor, and my clothes, which thankfully is not as burdensome to clean as paprika.

I don't know how many grams of butter are in a stick. I still can't convert fahrenheit to celsius. I had to get resourceful when the recipe called for softened butter (shocker the fire alarm didn't go off here.) And the melted butter combined with the spilled paprika to create a very-difficult-to-clean paste.

Unfortunately the house didn't smell like homemade baked goods as I had expected, but rather a combination of burnt plastic and toasty paprika.

All hurdles aside, the cookies turned out perfectly and I am the world's newest believer in Christmas miracles. Because moving abroad has neglected us of the regular holiday party circuit and the calories associated with it, I think it’s perfectly fine that I ate more than a quarter of the cookie dough right out of the bowl pot. I am never to be trusted with a bowl pot of cookie dough.

For Christmas dinner, we ate in our favorite Indian vegetarian place (yes, we have a favorite Indian vegetarian restaurant. We're so worldly. Another Dubai Christmas tradition!) where we are always the only white people there and always surprised by what comes to our table but never disappointed by it.

I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday. Merry Christmas from the Bruces of Dubai!

The Atlantis Hotel

We've had the Atlantis on our to-do list since we arrived. It's likely the biggest hotel in Dubai at 1500 rooms and also the most prominent building on the Palm Jumeirah, the palm tree shaped man-made island just off the city.

Rob was off yesterday, so it was the perfect clear, sunny day to explore the hotel and have a drink on what I envisioned to be a luxurious terrace overlooking the Arabian Gulf. A friend told me that the hotel is "easier" if you have a reservation before you stop by. What does that even mean, I remember thinking.

Didn't take long to it figure out. Poor souls who don't have a reservation get directed past the front drive to "The Avenues." The Avenues! we thought. How fabulous. They weren't. We learned quickly that "The Avenues" is a small, cavernous, overpriced shopping mall adjacent to the hotel. Shopping malls are something of a pastime here, and after only one month in Dubai, I've ceased to be impressed by them, especially when they're filled with Atlantis sweatshirts and keeping me from my fancy terrace.

We had the idea to call for a reservation. That would at least get us access into the hotel and out of this shopping mall purgatory. With our reservation, we proudly walked up to the security guys to tell them that we had a reservation and to please let us in because we're different than these other losers. They directed us to our restaurant, about five feet behind us in the mall. I'll never forget the defeat in Rob's face when he saw it.

But we're not quitters (that and we had spent $15 in cab fare to get there) so back outside we walked to regroup and plan our next move. A quick Google search showed a beach bar at the hotel. Weird thing to make a reservation for a beach bar but I've seen weirder here, so we did. We walked confidently back to the same security guys, this time telling them that we'd like to get by because we're going to the beach and please don't make us ask again. They again directed us back outside and around (not through) the hotel. I've never felt more like a mouse in a maze.

This place has security like Fort Knox. If Buckingham Palace is half as unassailable, the queen is in good hands. Here's Rob, walking where guests definitely shouldn't be walking, looking a little defeated but still determined.

After a 20 minute walk and getting denied access by at least seven security guards, we found our beach bar, which of course was not in the hotel and indeed open to the public. But the sun was hot and the beer was cold, so here I am:

We got in to the hotel at the end, but it took us circumventing the building, securing the perimeter, and sneaking in through the pool area.

I haven't found Dubai to reminiscent of Vegas as people had warned. Until yesterday. The lobby is massive, with 365 degree views of Dubai on one side and the wide open Arabian Gulf on the other. It's pretty impressive and relatively peaceful, thanks to well-implemented rules for keeping the riff raff out.

They even had a lady dressed up in winter clothes selling roasted chestnuts. I LOVE roasted chestnuts, but even I can't stomach them on an 80 degree day.

We found out yesterday that two of our favorite friends will be moving to Dubai in February! We're thrilled, but insistent that they should learn to navigate this place on their own rather than us showing them the way. So in honor of yesterday's debacle (and for a few laughs) we thought we'd go to the Atlantis for "a quick drink" and let them figure it out from there.

Growing pains

As promised, my post on things I find quirky and a little irritating in our new home.

1. Our washing machine. This Friday will be just about the 30th day since we've done laundry. What our bedroom lacks in decor, it makes up for in piles of dirty clothes. It's the most counter intuitive machine I've ever seen. Consequently, I'm not actually sure if it's broken or if I simply can't figure out how to use it. Last time I tried doing laundry, I returned home eight hours later to find the machine still full of water and soap. I wrote the issue in the building maintenance log, which I'm convinced nobody reads. And if they do, our laundry woes pale in comparison to unfortunate occupants who have water covering their living room floor, or other occupants who have no water at all. Anyway, the end result is that the machine locks and I can't get the clothes out. Today a man came to fix it, which he did. Until I asked him to open it, which he didn't (this gave me a sense validation that I'm not a complete idiot.) He called his supervisor to help, who got the clothes out and subsequently explained to me that the machine is manual, not automatic. As if that's going to get my clothes clean. I guess it highlighted my privileged background when I tried to explain to him that I thought machines, by nature, were automatic and that if I wanted a manual washing machine I would save electricity and buy a washboard and a basin. The clothes were dripping wet when I took them out, so it's anyone's guess how quickly they'll dry in the humidity here.

2. Waiting in line. People here don't particularly care for waiting in line and generally won't do it, despite the stores' best efforts to ask.

3. This.

This is an arrangement we saw in the floral section of a grocery store. In case you can't make it out, it's Santa Claus with his pants around his ankles, sitting in a bush. As far as I'm concerned, there are only one or two things someone is doing in a bush with his pants around his ankles, and I'd always hoped that Santa Claus wasn't the type.

4. The time it takes to get visa paperwork in order. Not to belabor the point, but I am a proud wine drinker and also unemployed, and getting a glass at the end of the day has been difficult and expensive to say the least. Rob's visa continues to get pushed back "one more week," and with that, our cable, Internet, and yes, our magical booze permit.

On a happy note, Santa came early to the Bruce household this year, thanks to some fabulous new friends who took us liquor shopping. I know life has some twists and turns, but I never guessed I'd be a 32-year-old woman on a forbidden beer run.

I hope you're all having fabulous and festive days leading up to Christmas. May they be full of love, Heineken, and may Santa Claus resist the temptation to crap in your bushes.

Today in the news

Hello friends,

Sorry about the lag time between posts. We still don't have Internet, and I'm learning this sluggish timing is par for the course in the Middle East.

Today's post was meant to be a good ol' fashioned venting session about some of the things I've found surprising, eccentric or wacky since we've been here (I've taken to making notes of them when I see them. I have a lot of notes.) That post will come soon, but I just couldn't find it in my heart to write about such trivial things after reading about the tragedy in Connecticut a few days ago.

I've always been an emotional person. As Rob affectionately says when I apologize to him through my tears, "It's OK sweetie. I knew what I signed up for." But considering we don't yet have kids, I surprised myself this week with how much this story affected me.

Aside from the sheer horror of what happened, I think this is hitting home because we've just moved to a region where the people are all too often generalized as evil and dangerous. From what I can gather in my reading and through talking to people, this kind of thing wouldn't happen in the UAE. I usually hold my head quite high as an American abroad, but times like this make that a lot more difficult. I don't have the answers, but it's clear that something has to be done.

Things like this make it tougher be away from friends and family. A big thank you to my wonderful, half asleep dad who took my teary Skype call at midnight when I finally heard the news.

Thinking about all of you from far away.
Love,
Andy

The new neighborhood

We've only been in Dubai for two weeks, and I'd venture to say we've lived in the most opposite districts this city could possibly offer. First Satwa, where the buildings are ancient in Dubai years (15 years old) and where no matter how spicy we ordered our Indian food or how good we got at smoking hookahs, we would never be looked at as locals. And now the Jebel Ali Gardens on the other end of town, a mostly expat neighborhood complete with expat essentials like Domino's Pizza, Subway, and Pinkberry, and where it's rare to see locals at all.

This is our new building. Despite the color scheme, trust me when I say it's new and not built at the height of Golden Girls popularity circa 1988.

Our apartment itself is huge: two bathrooms, two balconies, and I still can't figure out why two human beings would need such a large bedroom. The building is much like a Monet painting. It looks great from afar, but up close, it doesn't make any sense. For example, we were over the moon that there was a metal piece to cover the toilet paper (to me, having that metal piece means you've made it in life) until it fell out of the wall when we touched it. The craftsmanship leaves some to be desired.

There's not much to our neighborhood but apartment buildings, condos, and one massive shopping mall (with free wifi!) Even though we're a little outside of the most built up part of the city, we're not without an over-the-top, unnecessarily large shopping center. It's called Ibn Battuta and it's a maze and a time suck, especially for the unemployed like me.

Here are some examples of things in this mall:

Malls in the US that don't display life size elephants are the lesser for it, in my opinion.

Same goes for sailing vessels (sorry the photo is so massive, but so is the boat.)
They do nothing small here, even in the burbs.

But in all sincerity, we're happy with the move. It takes Rob about 10 minutes to get to work and if I want to meet him afterwards, it's a $4-$5 cab ride (taxis are ridiculously cheap here--one of our favorite discoveries!) We have a gym and a pool, and we will be very happy here. And in case we ever miss it, we can head into Satwa for some Dhaba mutton curry and feel like minorities once again.

Starting over

We've finally moved into our new apartment! With the move comes the reality that this will be our home for the next couple of years. With it also comes the reality that we moved into a new apartment with just our clothes and a few picture frames. I've learned that nothing makes you appreciate the basics like not having them. Trash cans, hangers, blinds, and that little cup on the dish rack where the flat wear dries all seem so trivial until you have to go out and re-buy them. It feels like my preliminary trip to KMart when I first started college. The good news is that we're not too remote and these things are accessible at stores only about a mile from our place. The bad news is that we already own all of this crap (in storage) and this money, in my opinion, would be better spent going somewhere fabulous, like hiking to the lost city of Petra or a weekend in Santorini.

Yesterday, I set out to buy boring necessities like sheets, a bath mat, and some door hooks. I came home with smelly candles, a cute picture for our kitchen, and two fabulous copper bowls used for serving Indian food.

So maybe my priorities are a little off kilter, but I justify it with trying to make this place feel a little more like home. And in my home, no matter the continent, there will ALWAYS be smelly candles.

I did manage to buy one boring necessity: a full length mirror. If nothing else, at least we'll look good. When I had finally trekked this massive thing home, I opened the box to find a bunch of stuff and no instructions as to what to do with it. I hate instruction manuals as much as the next guy until I don't have one to fall back on. So I relied on good old fashioned instinct to assemble that bad boy. And I did, with like five screws and some black rubber things left over. If I've learned anything from years of buying Ikea, it's that it's never good to have left overs.
(The Internet at the coffee shop I'm sitting at is pretty bad, so you're spared the stimulating images of my mirror in pieces on our floor.)

We'll post photos of the inside of our new place as soon as we've finished unpacking.
Hint: I was hoping it would fall off the truck, but our blue paisley sofa made it to the new place in all its hideous glory.

PS. Since writing this post, I broke our new ironing board, another boring essential. Must remember to put a new one on the list, along with one more copper bowl to complete the set.

Happy National Day!

The second day in December is National Day in the UAE. This year marked 41 years since the seven emirates became united.
I've said this from the minute we arrived here: I've never seen such incredible nationalism anywhere in my entire life. People here are so incredibly proud of their country, and so adoring of their rulers. On December 2, they paint their faces (or their kids' faces if they're not into it,) wear clothing and scarves with photos of the sheikhs (patriotism is not always cute,) and hand out UAE flags in the malls (exquisitely displayed above!) It's not uncommon to see things like this on the side of buildings, even when it's not National Day:

Or this (sorry about the bluriness-- was trying to avoid being hit by a car likely moving 40mph over the speed limit. Also very normal here.)

And nobody seems to mind covering every inch of their $500,000 car in decals and flags (this still irritates Rob every time he sees it.) Most shocking, it's not frowned upon to silly string people from your car on this day.

But silly string and obnoxious honking aside, it was really cool to be a part of this (and by a part of it I mean sitting at a street side cafe stuffing my face with hummus and hoping not to get nailed with silly string.)

Cocktails in our new town

I thought I would transition from the last post into the bar scene here in Dubai.
It's simple:
This is not a drink-friendly country. I'm not sure what qualifies a place as "drink friendly" but whatever it is, this place doesn't have it. It's legal to buy booze in a special store once you have a permit with permission from your employer and proof of how much money you make. I've yet to see one of these elusive stores. I think they hide them with other sinful things, like pork and Victoria's Secret.

Last night Rob and I were going to meet in a bar after he finished work, but he was running late so I went by myself until he got there. I'm not yet working, so my day consists of exploring (i.e. dragging myself through the streets in the heat.) For the record, running shoes don't look good with my outfits and I have a limited selection of sensible shoes, so by the end of the day, this girl is ready for a cold one.
So into the bar I go, and I think, "this must be what someone on a diet walking into McDonalds or anyone walking into a porn store feels like!" sneaking around to be sure nobody sees me duck in. As if I needed another excuse to be stared at in our neighborhood.

But things are good once you're in and out of the looming judgment. Bars (at least in Al Satwa) aren't the most cultural experience since there are no (or very few) locals in them. But I've found them to be a nice little respite, especially for a white girl here (and I'm sure my 6'4 red headed husband would agree.) We've found two types of bars here: English/Irish pubs and overpriced hotel bars on high floors with views of the ocean.

Here I am at our favorite bar we've found: Fibber McGees. I had only heard legend of it and we wandered through one too many alleys to find it, but it was one hell of a place.

Can you feel my excitement through your computer screen? On this particular visit, we met a Welsh man who taught us the rules of rugby, as best he could in a loud bar when England is playing New Zealand. Since people in the UK who don't live in England are fans of any team playing England, our new friend was a New Zealand fan. So now we are too.

Our (temporary) neighborhood

We live in Al Satwa, which is what can best be described as one of the lower income working class neighborhoods in Dubai. It's shadowed by the incredible
city skyline (the most amazing I've ever seen), but the buildings could use some serious work (read: bulldozed and replaced with high rises, which will happen someday very soon.) Here's the view from our window:

We were warned about the neighborhood before we arrived. The thing is: we love our quirky little melting pot of a neighborhood. People who live here are from every corner of the earth. Well, everywhere except places where they have skin as light as ours. And by ours I mean Rob's. But even in the latest hours of the night, I've never once felt unsafe. Out of place, maybe. But never in danger. Here's Rob on our street after an (extremely rare) rain storm that flooded the streets yesterday:

And let me brag about the food here for a minute. It's amazing. And so cheap. Say we decide we want dinner out. First, there are about a million choices if you're into ethnic food, which we are. Turns out my favorite is Lebanese, and Rob's is Indian, so for now we're alternating nights. Someday I'm sure we'll get tired of it, but we're game until that day comes. We'll get out of a sit down meal for the equivalent of about $11 each. No wine since it's not allowed, but with food this good, I don't even miss it. Second, the food is the best I've ever had. We can't get over it.

They're moving us next week to a neighborhood closer to Rob's hotel. The building is new (which means our kitchen will smell less like curry,) but we'll sure miss our time in Al Satwa.

PS. For those of you shocked by the wine comment, we do get drinks, but only in hotels (the only place booze can legally be served.) So our night starts in a street side restaurant and ends in a bar that looks like it could double as the set of Cheers.

Seriously, don't do it.

Greetings from the United Arab Emirates! We've arrived! And we've actually been awake and alert for, well, at least some of it.

I think I've (rightfully) omitted from my memory what a nightmare jetlag is. Dubai is 12 hours ahead of San Francisco, which means we've had our fair share of adjustment these past few days. And Turkish coffee at midnight, while delicious, doesn't help our cause. This was our first valuable lesson while living abroad, and I've decided to title our blog to commemorate it appropriately. Turkish coffee comes in a small cup, but packs more punch than a thousand cups of Seattle's Best.

We've already fallen in love with our new city. Dubai is more incredible than photos could ever articulate. The place is completely over the top, and while it's often compared to Las Vegas, the most special part for me is how international it is. There are people from all over the world here. This goes beyond the sunburned German tourists that fill Las Vegas every time I've been there. Every day that I wake up (these days it's with the call to prayer around 5:15 a.m.), I'm amazed at the intersection of cultures and languages we see on a daily basis.

I like this photo because it's us in front of the tallest building in the world, even though it looks like it's growing out of my head. We also look exhausted, which fits these past few days pretty perfectly.

I'll be sure to write regular updates for friends, family, and people contemplating a move to Dubai (i.e. Me about two months ago...I lived for blogs like this.)
Until then, it's only 12:30 p.m. and within our window for some Turkish coffee.
xoxo
The Bruces of Dubai